Soundiron has released the Waterharp V2.0 update, a deeply multi-sampled percussion and effects instrument library that is designed to capture the heart and soul of the Waterphone.
Water phones, originally developed by Richard Waters in the late 1960s — also commonly known as Water Harps — are found in all shapes and sizes, but they generally follow the same basic design: a brass vessel with a hollow brass water chamber and a long neck. The top side of the chamber is adorned with vertical brass tines or bars.
The Waterphone is played by strumming, striking and bowing these tines, which resonate together creating darkly harmonic or dissonant tones and textures. The tines are cut to specific lengths and arranged to create scales as they wind around the body of the waterphone. Adding water to the chamber and changing the position of the waterphone drastically changes the pitch and harmonics that are produced when the instrument is played. The water chamber itself can also be played as a percussion instrument. Overall, the waterphone can be considered as both a tuned and un-tuned percussion instrument, but is most often used in suspense and horror soundtracks and sound design as a dramatic sound effect tool.
It was sampled with lots of different mallets, sticks, metal rods, fingers and palms, bows and even voices to explore every nuance and hidden musical potential of this instrument. It was recorded both empty and full of water, and from the inside out using hydrophones (underwater microphones), while being cooked over open flame and while filled with machine screws. And finally, Soundiron created a wide selection of ambient soundscapes, pads, drones, ambiences and atmospheres using the recordings and all manner of creative sound design techniques.
Content:
- 7.86 GB installed.
- 2,927 Samples.
- 18 Kontakt 5.1 .nki instrument presets.
- 24-bit / 48kHz uncompressed PCM wav audio.
- Unlocked Kontakt presets and wav samples to allow user customization.
- Bonus Pads, Soundscapes and Atmospheres.
- Convolution reverb with a variety of different room, hall and special effect acoustic environments.
Price: $59.00.
MP3 Demos: soundcloud.com/soundiron/sets/water-harp
Video Walk-through: youtu.be/bmq8927PsfY